


Distraction

by TJade



Category: Rise of the Guardians (2012)
Genre: Canon Compliant, F/M, Non-Canon Relationship, Relationship(s), think of it as a thing going on outside of the events in the movie, this isn't part of the Grim Fairy Tales series
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-14
Updated: 2021-02-14
Packaged: 2021-03-12 07:09:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29381151
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TJade/pseuds/TJade
Summary: Grim can't remedy Pitch's situation, but she can provide a distraction from it.
Relationships: Pitch Black (Guardians of Childhood)/Original Character(s), Pitch Black (Guardians of Childhood)/Original Female Character(s)
Kudos: 1





	Distraction

**Author's Note:**

> I really enjoy the character I created in Grim, but I don't particularly love her initial portrayal. I wanted to reimagine her role in the Guardians universe, specifically the movie version. So, Happy Valentine's Day! Have a fic I wrote to indulge myself :)

“You don’t look well,” she tells him.

Pitch’s face screws up in that way it does when he’s irritated. “One tends not to look their best after losing everything they’ve worked for.”

Grim knows the Boogeyman was working on something the past couple centuries. She hadn’t asked for details, and he hadn’t offered. Fear and death, contrary to what the majority seemed to believe, weren’t related- his business was his own, and none of hers.

Whatever his business had been this time, it's left him in rough shape. He was always thin, but now he's gaunt. His eyes and his cheeks are hollow, and as he snarls at her he looks feral. Grim doesn’t bother looking in mirrors much, but she’s fairly certain she’s never been so wild as this, even in her canine form.

She smooths some hair behind his ear, running her thumb along his cheekbone as he seethes. “Perhaps you should rest.”

He grimaces. “A visit from the Sandman is the last thing I’m in need of right now.”

Grim tilts her head, letting her thumb slide from his cheek to his bottom lip. “We both know there are other methods of relaxation besides sleep.”

His eyes fix on the white flesh of her neck briefly before he meets her gaze again. “Do you really think a tryst can remedy hundreds of years of planning wasted?”

She’s tempted to say, “Yes, if it’s good enough,” just to see his expression. Anytime Pitch loses his composure is immensely entertaining, and she’s been so _bored_ as of late. She wants to see him bristle, wants to see the Nightmare King with teeth bared and claws out.

Getting him angry isn’t the only way of doing that, however. Instead she shrugs, leaning in close until he can feel her breath on his ear.

“Think of it less of a remedy,” she purrs, “and more of a distraction.”

She feels his hand on her waist and smirks just before he presses his mouth to hers.

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

He thinks he might hate her.

At the very least, Pitch envies Grim. People don’t really believe in either of them, nowadays, but they still fear her. Even though most will never so much as glimpse her face, they fear her. The thought sears through his veins like molten lead. Perhaps that’s why his skin burns as he buries his face in the crook of her neck, digs his nails into her back.

She kisses his forehead, strokes his scalp. Eventually she tugs lightly at his hair, pulling his head back and catching his mouth in a kiss.

She’s so _gentle._ It drives him mad. He isn’t something to be treated gently, he’s the Boogeyman, the Nightmare King! He is the monster that lurks in the dark, twisting sweet dreams into dread and fear and a swallowing void.

He bites her lip and tightens his fingers until he feels skin break beneath them. She laughs- _laughs_ \- and bumps their noses together.

“Are we playing rough then?” she teases, smiling down at him.

She has absolutely no fear of him. But when has she ever?

He lowers her face to her neck again and sinks his teeth into her throat. She hums with amusement and rests her chin on the top of his head.

He thinks he might hate her.

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

Tonight he’s desperate.

She can tell by the marks he’s working to leave, his focused silence apart from an occasional angry hiss out his teeth or a frustrated sigh through his nose. He’s desperate to make her feel him, _see_ him.

Other times, Grim would bite him or bruise him, mark him up in equal measure, remind him how _seen_ he was through pain that she knew would linger, scars he could hide but would know were there. But those times he would goad her in low tones. Those times she would feel more than hear his laugh as he’d press his weight into her, rolling off easily if she decided to shove him.

Tonight he doesn’t just want to be seen- he wants control.

Grim lets him chafe, the unwilling recipient of her affection, lets his rage spill out over her. She soaks in the heat of his fury, welcomes it as it warms her.

She remembers he was almost kind once, for a moment. He’d looked at her, something odd in his eyes, more vulnerable than he ever was before or since.

“It must be lonely,” he’d said.

She’d smiled, not meeting his eyes.

“It’s the loneliest thing in the world.”

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

When they’d first met, he’d thought her a formidable sight. A specter draped in black, standing in a field of souls that grew white and curling from the dirt where their bodies were buried. A swing of her scythe, and the ground lay barren before her. She’d looked to the shadows where he’d stood, face pale like bleached bone, and approached him.

He’d looked back at her and seen a fellow monster, something torn from the darkness from which they were all born. He’d seen someone who might hunger as he did, somebody seeking to fill the hollowness inside them by devouring the light that outshines them.

She smiled, and he wondered if she saw the same in him.

“Good afternoon. How do you do?”

And with those words, the illusion broke.

Lying here, running his fingers through her hair, he’s glad it did. Glad that it was an illusion, and not the reality, because half the pleasure of her company is the contrast of her incongruous traits. To see this figure that everyone cowers from stretch like a lazy cat, her hollow eyes fond as she watches him.

“You’re smiling,” she says. “I trust I provided sufficient distraction?”

He snorts. “You drive me _to_ distraction.”

She smirks. “Good.”

Pitch lets himself mirror her expression as he twirls a strand of her hair around his finger.

He envies the fear she receives, but it isn’t as if she really wants it in the first place, and that’s what makes it all the worse. Now, as she rests her head on his arm, she almost seems unaware of what she is, of the dread apparition the world views her as.

This isn’t a remedy. It’s a distraction, as much for her as for him, and they both know it. It isn’t a cure for their miserable state in the world, but in this moment neither of them have to think about that.

He considers pulling her close to him again, drawing out their forgetfulness of the world for just a little longer. He kisses her forehead instead.

She smiles against his skin.

**Author's Note:**

> Hopefully this comes across in the fic, but this Grim is more disconnected from the Guardians than her Chionophobia counterpart. There's a whole world of magic and myth outside of children's stories, after all. It's not exactly the Reaper's business who kids choose to believe in.  
> I like to think that the whole magic world outside of the Guardians kind of views them as celebrities- yeah, a standoff with the Boogeyman is cool and all, but to the common goblin it's just some far-off drama. What's it got to do with them? Not their business if Santa's dying. They've got socks to steal.


End file.
